General Electric (GE) fell the most in four months after a prominent whistleblower working with a short-seller accused the company of masking financial problems.

House of Representatives members accused America’s Securities and Exchange Commission of impeding their probe into how the agency failed to uncover the alleged £35bn (€39.2bn) fraud perpetrated by Bernard Madoff.

A US financial watchdog chief said his agency repeatedly failed for at least a decade to pursue allegations of wrongdoing by Wall Street figure Bernard Madoff, the alleged perpetrator of a $50bn (€35.63bn) pyramid scheme.